The Louvre Heist: Working on a museum theft

On Oct. 19, 2025, a team of intrepid thieves donned the guise of humble construction workers and pulled off one of the greatest heists in human history.

At about 9:30 in the morning the apparent work crew parked a furniture lift against the wall of Paris’ famed Louvre Museum. Using the vehicle to gain access to a balcony, the bandits used a disc cutter to enter the historic structure through a window. The alarm was triggered, but people outside suspected nothing, just another day on the busy streets of the City of Lights. Inside, however, unsuspecting guards were held at bay with power tools while several pieces of the French crown jewels, over $100 million worth, were pilfered by the poachers.

The criminals left the same way they got in, and, again, no one thought anything of the work team that left the scene just as fast as they arrived. The whole event lasted less than eight minutes. It took authorities about a week to track down the suspects. Eleven people were arrested in connection with the heist, and so far, only five folks have been officially charged for the crime.  

The crown jewels, however, remain at large.

Crimes like this always garner a lot of attention, with the lore behind the events reaching mythic proportions and the perpetrators often being granted hero status. Pop culture glorifies a good heist, with countless books and movies depicting them in fantastic fashion.

Now it’s time for me to plan my own. I have become aware of an artifact in need of deliverance, and I cannot rest until it is liberated from its climate controlled archival safe glass enclosure.

Nestled near the Pagan River in southern Virginia is the Isle of Wight County Museum. In the quaint structure housing the history of one of our nation’s oldest communities is believed to be the world oldest ham.

This slab of still-edible meat is believed to be about 120 years old. It is a “Smithfield Ham,” cut was the carcass of a peanut-fed hog slayed, cured, treated and smoked in the town of Smithfield, a small town east of Norfolk, Va. and just south of the legendary Chesapeake Bay.

I must eat that ham.

But freeing it from the eyes of the public will be no easy task. It is under constant supervision, in the form of a 24-hour livestream called the Ham Cam. A recent study of the footage doesn’t reveal a lot of foot traffic near the exhibit. Being the home to the world’s oldest ham probably does not bring as many visitors to Smithfield as it used to. In fact, production of genuine Smithfield Hams ceased not too long ago, in 2024, due to reduced consumer demand.

So, replicating the livestream online will be a simple task. AI can help me with that now. Taking care of the guards could be more difficult, but the video shows little surveillance outside the webcam.

On second thought, this job might just be a piece of cake, or rather, ham.

I’ll have it out in time for Easter.